


like a moth to a flame

by pinkwhalepjs



Category: Dimension 20 (Web Series), Fantasy High
Genre: Ayda is autistic though it is not specifically mentioned in this fic, Canon Compliant, F/F, Getting those kisses in, POV Ayda, Yearning, overuse of metaphors probably
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-31
Updated: 2020-01-31
Packaged: 2021-02-25 10:40:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22494733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pinkwhalepjs/pseuds/pinkwhalepjs
Summary: The events up through episode 12 from Ayda's perspective. Just a whole lot of yearning--She looked into Figueroth’s eyes and they were meeting hers, seeing her, like Greater Invisibility itself would have no effect. Her self in all its many many many flaws was on display before that true sight and somehow a smile formed on Figueroth’s, no... Fig’s!, perfect lips and she told Ayda she liked what she saw. And Ayda believed her.
Relationships: Ayda Aguefort/Figueroth Faeth
Comments: 23
Kudos: 99





	like a moth to a flame

Figueroth Faeth was a whirlwind in human form, or tiefling to be more precise. Chaos incarnate. Or rather she stood boldly, two feet firmly on the ground, while everyone and everything around her was thrown into motion. 

Ayda always yearned to understand power. Life was so out of control all of the time, with rules and scripts that were always changing and she was always wrong. Magic means control. Contracts mean control. But no matter the money and spells she accumulated, Ayda could never seem to possess the power she saw in others, the power to know the right things to say and do. 

In an instant Fig knew what to say to make someone laugh, to make them understand, to make them love her. She spoke and it was loud and beautiful and exciting. No wonder she was a famous rock star in Spire, surely in an instant of encountering Fig all sentient beings would sell the very essence of their souls to spend one more minute, one more second with her. Fig made people move, made them believe, made them happy.

Ayda rarely made other people happy. Not in this lifetime or others if the records of her predecessors could be trusted. She said what she meant and the meaning was the wrong one. If only people could just tell her what they wanted she could just do that. How could people ask nothing of her and then be disappointed she did not deliver what they wanted?

Ayda dreamed of friendship, the great treasure that all the pirates of Leviathan constantly raved about. She had created her own secret collection, the vastest section of the whole library, attempting to research it and unlock those elusive riches. Despite her devotion to this research she could not help but think from the looks of the so-called Bad Kids that she was still doing it wrong. Yet another failure to add to her collection.

Holed up in her library, safe from thoughts of the father who had never wanted her or even come to see her this lifetime, Ayda could fall into words on pages. She could inhabit the worlds of adventurers of the past, observing the friendship and love in their lives as a distant voyeur. It was really the best she could ask for. 

But then Figueroth Faeth appeared. Sometimes people told Ayda they were friends but they did not mean it. That was a very hard lesson to learn and Ayda had learned it many times. Adaine Abernathy and Gorgug Thistlespring surely represented the top minds of the new generation but if anything their venerable skill and wisdom only made Ayda more certain their promise of friendship was another false one. Why should people who already have a dragon’s hoard of money, many high level spells, and a frankly incomprehensible amount of friends and loved ones want anything to do with her? They had nothing to gain from the transaction for it was she who was lacking.

Yet beyond the bounds of all logic one Figueroth Faeth called upon her to save her friend, or rather astonishingly she supposed, their friend, Adaine. To be needed was a thing Ayda could understand. She had knowledge and people needed knowledge therefore they required a transaction. She had spells and people needed spells therefore they required a transaction. The Bad Kids bought her spells and sought her knowledge and in their infinite kindness they never objected to the price and they even applied for library cards. But to be wanted was something unknown.

The Bad Kids she knew were associates of one Garthy O’Brien who outshined Ayda in every imaginable way. Garthy had vast sums of wealth, knowledge, and spellcasting expertise and held all who encountered them in thrall. Still Figueroth asked Ayda. Garthy could have teleported them, but Figueroth asked Ayda. She wanted Ayda. 

Beyond the spell itself Figueroth wanted her to stay and help them. She wanted Ayda to stay. Not to go away and stop being so annoying, but to stay.

Figueroth’s skin was like Sylvain porcelain, smooth and clear and perfect, never to be touched by a clumsy unpracticed hand. Her hair was like the night itself. As though Ayda could fly away into it, surrounding herself forever within it, far away from fear and shame. Figueroth’s voice like bardic legends contained a power she had never beheld, perhaps she thought, never in any other lifetime. She spoke and the world seemed to quake and dive, the air itself would make way for the words she uttered. She spoke and happiness entered the world like bells ringing across the hills, birds singing on high. She looked into Figueroth’s eyes and they were meeting hers, seeing her, like Greater Invisibility itself would have no effect. Her self in all its many many many flaws was on display before that true sight and somehow a smile formed on Figueroth’s, no... Fig’s!, perfect lips and she told Ayda she liked what she saw. And Ayda believed her.

In this short life, an echo of eons past, Ayda had known some moments of true joy though they were few and far between. She remembered the first time she took flight and the earth turned to nothing beneath her and she became one with the wind. She remembered mastering her very first spell, feeling the power flow through her body and warm her from the inside out. She loved the Compass Point library, the home she had made for herself in every sense of the words. But she had never felt anything like this.

Being with Fig was like crawling over hot coals and trying to create a whole new system of magic but having it feel so good she never wanted to leave the nonsense, the chaos, even though it upended everything she knew. She tried to tell Fig that she was beautiful and special and quite possibly the best creation the gods had ever devised but Fig kept derailing the conversation to talk about Ayda’s clarity and thoughtfulness and all manner of things that Ayda knew people did not care for but maybe Fig did. And she could not think that though because if she did. If she did.

Fig had invited her to a sleepover and no one had invited her anywhere before but Fig kept inviting her everywhere. And she had already messed up the rules as expected but Fig was somehow happy. And Fig went to sleep and she lay there soft and warm like life itself flowed from her and Ayda’s surely did. She stayed awake as long as she could, looking. She knew it was probably against the rules and she would be in the wrong again and everyone would remember that she was annoying and they hated being around her but Fig never seemed to remember that. And maybe if tomorrow she did Ayda could have seen her for hours like this and knew that she slept next to her, so incredibly close, and Fig had wanted her to be there, wanted her. 

She kept remembering how her past lives had warned her and warned her to stay at Compass Points. That was the safe place where she could be protected. When Ayda went out into the world was when she was at risk. In the world people laugh at you, they trick you, they are disgusted by you and there is only so much of that it is possible to take. But Ayda found the ever-present fears of her selves seemed to fade into the background like distant crashing waves. She knew she could never return to the library now that she had known this. Now that she had known Fig.

Fig was what mattered. She would give this lifetime to Fig. And if Fig did not want her perhaps she should simply cast the whole life time away and start anew. But she knew what she would write for her next life. She needed them to know, to understand how it felt that night to lie beside someone and know they wanted you there beside them. Magic of all the seven winds combined could not compare.

In the morning Fig told her to be herself, to act how she wanted to act not how other wanted her to act. The riddle consumed her and she found herself destined to failure for she above all else wanted to be what Fig wanted but if that is the one thing Fig did not want then what could she possibly be. But when Fig looked deep into her eyes in that way that reached through her body itself and gripped her heart as if to stop it dead and told Ayda to do what she wanted Ayda felt a piece of her sanity give way.

Ever since that moment a desire had corrupted Ayda’s every waking moment that she knew could only lead to utter destruction. She had to tell Fig. Tell her that she wanted nothing but her. To hear nothing but her voice. To see nothing but her smile. To do nothing except perhaps if the gods ever granted her a reward beyond what she knew in truth she deserved to touch those lips with her own. To become only the fire inside of her and join with the fire inside of Fig and be one singular being for now and for the end of time. 

She drifted around Fig as a planet orbits the sun. In the periphery so as not to infringe or be a bother to Fig but always ceaselessly drawn toward her and around her, to soak up any modicum she could of the light emanating from her presence. She kept meaning to leave but the insanity in her mind had taken a powerful hold and the gravity kept pulling her ever closer. There was a myth she had read about a boy with wax wings who had dared to fly up towards the sun and for his hubris had fallen to his death in the ocean waves below never to see the light again. Now she understood this story all too well. Her wings were made of more sturdy stuff and the devil’s fire within Fig could not harm her of course but to grasp for the unreachable knowing it means your doom why it seemed so reasonable to her. She had thought the pirates fools to hurl themselves into crashing waves upon hearing a siren’s call but things were becoming clearer to Ayda by the day. She felt more kinship with the humble moths now than a phoenix. The flame was calling her far more powerfully than her reason could contest and to this kind of fire she would not be immune. 

Fig gazed upon the towering briars, gnarled and black, reminding Ayda of the danger Fig intended to throw herself into. She used to be afraid of monsters, demons, but her trepidation vanished with the thought of Fig in danger. Even the Nightmare King himself If only she could protect her from all harm, be her shield and sword, let her never face hardship again. But it was not fear for herself that troubled Fig’s brow. Her father had been lost to the mysterious being that was Adaine’s sister. Ayda felt at once ashamed that she had not prevented this catastrophe. She had been the one to free Aelwyn. All of her years studying divination and she could not foresee this, a matter so important to Fig’s happiness, the only thing of real importance. But she would offer her all that she could, what meager magic she could supply.

Fig’s worry seemed momentarily relieved and it was the largest victory Ayda felt she had ever achieved. She was ashamed at her own brazen behavior as she wrapped Fig in her arms and carried her through the night sky. Cold winds howled but she only felt warmth. She held the world’s greatest treasure ever so carefully in her arms. Her face burned bright. If not for their invisibility she was sure she would be given away immediately. In fact it was miraculous that Fig could not feel her heart pounding its way out of her chest like a miner buried in a cave collapse crawling their way desperately towards the light. 

When Ayda had to release Fig into the boughs of one of the great trees she felt her body filled to the brim with loss. Not only the touch of skin that before Fig she had never known in such a way but the imminent loss of Fig herself as she had to return to Leviathan. She had been nothing but useless so far though so in order to earn her place in Fig’s presence she desperately needed to learn how to save her father. To leave Fig felt like the great agony of ghost dancers to the north who pierced their flesh and pinned it to the ground, forcing them to tear themselves away, flaying pieces of their own flesh as a sign of fearlessness and immunity to pain. She would tear a part of herself away easily if it meant giving Fig what she wanted. 

But she found herself unwilling to pull away. Fig told her she was perfect and though she felt this could not be true she found herself unable to doubt Fig even as she dived down the giant trunk, effortlessly cool as always. She only wanted to believe, to believe and to give in. She flew after Fig as Fig’s light drew her in closer and closer and that singular compulsion eclipsed her brain and she pulled from her bag an article she had composed in a moment of utter madness. Fig’s eyes grew wide as Ayda offered up the riskiest exchange she had ever proposed. The wild spirit of hope flew into Ayda’s body and possessed her as she opened her mouth to confess ultimate vulnerability, her deepest desire. 

And then Fig’s mouth was on hers and as she had anticipated it was perfect. But then she was gone and for a moment Ayda wondered if she had dreamt it. But Fig reemerged and kissed her again and the briars became soft and the night became bright and the stars shone as though each one has itself just been kissed by the most wonderful girl in the world. 

And Ayda, quavering, finding boldness previously unimaginable to her, reached out and found that she could kiss Fig too. And she was sure she had made a million mistakes, a trillion perhaps but she also knew that Fig would forgive them all, she would smile and laugh in that way that meant it was their joke not hers and maybe keep kissing her just like this or even love her. Ayda felt born anew. The flames were burning all around her and she was brilliant and unafraid. What could she fear when Figueroth Faeth had kissed her. 

She still felt the agony of pulling away but the pain had faded. She knew that she belonged to Fig, with Fig, for Fig and she would return always to her like a magnet drawn to true north. A few hours without Fig’s light could be spared in return for a lifetime of basking in its radiance. The words flowed clearer now as though some great dam had been broken inside of her. She pulled a feather from her wings so that Fig could call her from any corner of the earth, allow her to protect her from the many perils that stood to threaten her and diminish that radiant happiness that kept the world alight. She vowed to Fig in every way she knew how to bind herself to her. Magically, physically, emotionally she wanted the world to know to who she belonged. Ayda was wanted, needed, maybe even loved. 

When Fig reached up rip out her earring, bloody and beautiful, shimmering in the moonlight, Ayda’s hear fully departed from her chest. A perfect exchange. 150 gold pieces for a third level spell. Token for token. Vow for vow.

**Author's Note:**

> please be nice this is my first fic. please leave a comment. shout out to all my autistic wlw sisters. seeing this kind of representation for the first time awoke something in me and i just had to write something. hey you reading this, you WILL be loved.


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